


Cheap Thrills

by LamiaCalls



Category: Adult Wednesday Addams (Web Series)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LamiaCalls/pseuds/LamiaCalls
Summary: Wednesday agrees to meet up with one of Pugsley's college friends on Halloween.
Relationships: Wednesday Addams & Original Male Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	Cheap Thrills

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss_M](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/gifts).



Wednesday Adams eyed the crowd lining up in front of her. Halloween was a difficult time of year for her. Finding out that the terrifying monster that rounded a corner was actually just a college student was, to put it simply, quite disappointing. And finding out that the person with uncanny resemblance to Freddie Kruger, her childhood crush, was one of her interns in a mask? Dejecting, today the least.

Never more sharply reminded of Halloween’s tricky business than now, she watched the trail of people in witch, werewolf and undead costumes in front of her. None of the latter had even bothered to fragrance themselves with the heady scent of rot. So inauthentic. She wondered what Lurch would say, to see them fresh-faced and smelling like Ralph Lauren. He had spent so many years cultivating his musk, after all.

Beside her stood a man named Nick. She knew little about Nick, except that he had been Pugsley’s friend in college. It had been with much surprise that two days ago, she’d received a call from her little brother, imploring her to meet his friend. Nick, apparently, had decided to move to Los Angeles — she hadn’t gotten the details on why — and didn’t know a single person there. So, Pugsley, being Pugsley, thought to put she and Nick in touch. And suggested they “hang out”, as he put it. And so she had agreed. There was little she wouldn’t do for Pugsley, and she knew better than anyone what a pain making friends was in this city. She didn’t mind, personally, but those of a more extroverted nature tended to suffer. If Nick was anything like Pugsley (though no one, truly, was quite like Pugsley, she thought), then he would be someone with a lot of friends.

The friend in question was dressed in overalls, a canister strapped to his back. He was pretending to be a ghostbuster, he’d told her when he’d picked her up.

“What is the canister for?” she asked now.

“It’s a proton blaster,” he said. “Gets the ghost into the trap or whatever. Have you really never seen Ghostbusters?”

“No, I find cinematic portrayals of ghosts to be often quite insensitive,” she said with a sigh. “But tell me, where does one buy these ghost traps? Getting a ghost to move at all is one thing, but _trapping_ it must be take quite a feat of engineering. A ghost trap sounds like it would be a very useful tool.”

“It’s just from the movie,” he said. He shrugged. “It’s not real.”

Wednesday grimaced. Of course. Typical Halloween, typical Hollywood.

“Have you ever been to one of these before?” he said, motioning ahead. “I thought it’d be right up your alley, from what Pugs said.”

“A haunted house? Yes, of course,” she said. “We had around six poltergeists when I was young. There were a few non-malevolent spirits too, but they most stayed outdoors. Have you been to one before?”

“You and Pugs are both into that ghost stuff then, huh?” he said. “I’ve been to a couple. The reviews said this one was really scary. Sure you’re prepared?”

“Oh, I’ve got all my tools with me,” she said, patting her bag. She had packed heavily for the occasion.

They were nearing the front of the line now.

“I’m surprised so many people are interested in this,” Wednesday said, looking about her. “I suppose there’s not many hauntings in Los Angeles, at least that I’ve noticed. It’s a wonder really, given how many people here tend to hold grudges.”

“Oh yeah?” He moved up another space in the line with her.

“There were plenty of spirits where I used to live,” Wednesday said. She felt a tug in her chest. That was the other thing Halloween did to her: make her homesick. Hearing Pugsley’s voice only a few days ago hadn’t improved the situation either. It had been months since she last saw him. But she went on: “I was quite the little exorcist when I was a teenager. You know how it is, when your neighbours find out you’ve got occult skills, they won’t stop calling round, asking you to calm the spirit of their dead aunt or whomever. It was quite the chore, but I’m glad I was able to get such a wealth of experience in hindsight. Not many people are interested in that sort of thing nowadays. Dying art, really.”

“Uh huh,” Nick said.

He was clearly only half paying attention as he rooted around in his bag for something. They’d reached the double doors now, and were ushered in by a woman in a poor ghoul costume. It was a small lobby, dirty and haphazardly decorated. Not at all the usual haunted house that Wednesday frequented. Against the back wall was a makeshift desk, with a zombie — or more likely, Wednesday corrected herself, a man in a zombie costume — manning the till. He looked bored. Next to him stood elevator doors, with a small ragtag group of young adults were standing outside of it.

“$40, right?” Nick said, handing over the cash as they reached the desk.

“What are you doing?” Wednesday asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick said, brushing her off. “You’ve done me a favour by coming out with me.”

“But wait,” she said. She turned to the zombie-man. “Are you charging for ghosts?”

“What?” the man said. “Look, just stand with that group there. The elevator will be down in a second.”

“Come on, Wednesday,” Nick said. She let herself be guided to the little group.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “I really hope they’re splitting the profits and not taking advantage of the fact ghosts are terrible for collective action.”

The group consisted of a woman in a cat costume with impressively elaborate face paint, a man in a football jersey with black paint smeared across his cheeks who was clearly the catgirl's boyfriend and two boys in matching werewolf costume — they looked about the same age as she, but the way they guffawed over a fart joke made it difficult for Wednesday to consider them “men”.

One of the werewolves seemed to notice Wednesday, and gave her a look up and down that made her skin crawl. She sneered back at him.

“What are you supposed to be?” he asked.

“Myself,” Wednesday said flatly.

“How’s that scary?” he asked, wrinkling his nose at her.

“Oh, you don’t think that humans can be monsters?” she said.

He looked like he might reply, but they were interrupted by a bright young woman, dressed in plain clothes. A refreshing change for the evening.

“Hello, my spooks and spookettes! I’m Miranda, I’m here to fill you on some details for tonight,” she said. Her smile was positively maniacal. Wednesday liked her. “So first of all, I want to let you know that you are in safe hands. If you feel overwhelmed, panicked or stop having fun at any point during your journey through Madam Zokov’s Haunted Mansion experience, please just raise your hand. We have cameras in every room”—Wednesday raised an eyebrow, but none of the group seemed to be particularly horrified by that fact—“and we’ll be able to come and get you, no questions asked. Just know, that if you do choose to opt out, we cannot let you back in later unless you pay the $20 fee once again. We also do not give refunds. There are no bathrooms inside the Haunted Mansion, so if you need to go, you will need to go now.”

She paused here, looking at them brightly. Wednesday wondered who Madam Zokov was, and why on earth she would have build a house that didn’t have any practical plumbing. And why her so-called Mansion looked distinctly like a disused concrete building in downtown Los Angeles.

“Right, then. I’m going to press the button for the elevator now. Once it arrives, you should all get in. This is your group. Do become familiar with each other’s faces so you don’t get split up. You must stay together at all times. I cannot emphasize this enough. Anyone who splits off from the rest of the group will be retrieved you and your night will be ended prematurely. We absolutely do not want that, so please don’t make us do that! Are you ready to enter your experience?”

“Yeah!” the two werewolf boys cried in unison.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Stepping in, Wednesday discovered the giant cobwebs and myriad of oversized spiders hanging in the corner were merely toy props, much to her disappointment.

“Have fun and good luck, my spooks and spookettes!” Miranda called as the doors slid shut. Wednesday shuddered.

The lights flickered and it began to trundle upwards. Vaguely Halloween-esque jingles were being piped in through the tinny speakers as it rose.

“Do you think it’ll really be that scary, Jonas?” one of the werewolf bros was saying to the other.

“Aww are you too chicken for this?” Jonas said. He was the same one who had asked about her costume. “Bawk bawk! I always knew you were a coward, Will.”

Wednesday considered them for a moment. Her life would be infinitely better if she just left them alone.

She leant forward, and made eye contact with Jonas. He was at least six foot, but size had never been something that bothered Wednesday, not when she knew where true power came from.

“You know, fear is a natural response. Without fear, your ancestors would have been torn, limb from limb, by lions. Without fear, your ancestors would have caught the bubonic plague off their neighbours instead of keeping well away. Without fear, your ancestors would have swam too far out, eaten poisonous plants, jumped off buildings. Fear is what keeps us _alive_. You should appreciate that. Fear is not something to be ashamed of. I would think the opposite: not being afraid means you must be too stupid to understand that which you should be afraid of.”

Jonas blinked down at her, though whether in shock or lack of understanding, she just couldn’t be certain. When Will, the other werewolf, laughed, though, that seemed to trigger something, because Jonas sneered.

“What a freak,” he spat at her. “Who even asked you?”

Wednesday smiled. “See, that reaction, to get angry at me, that’s your fear of inferiority and social rejection coming into play. Isn’t it amazing how something so simple as fear can account for so many situations?”

Jonas’s sneer turned into something more like confusion. Wednesday assumed he was not smart enough to understand her quite yet. And, alas, as the numbers ticked up on the little LED display, it seemed he wouldn’t have time to figure it out. The only way he would ever figure it out is if the elevator got stuck for at least a week.

She often thought about elevators getting stuck, and of experiencing the crushing claustrophobia that people often spoke about. Strangers turning on each other, everyone panicking. Ah, but a girl could dream. Maybe one day she would be so lucky.

As it was, though, the doors slid open. The werewolf bros led the way out, followed by the catgirl and footballer couple. Nick and she were last to leave, but when she looked over at him, he was eyeing her strangely.

“Yes?” Wednesday said, wearily. It wouldn’t be the first time a man had far overstepped his boundaries and told her how to act with strangers, but it never got less tiresome.

But, instead, Nick said: “Nothing… It’s just. You’re kind of intense, did you know that?”

“I’ve been told, yes,” Wednesday said. She looked at him expectantly.

“I like it,” he said, shrugging. He began to follow the rest of the group out.

Wednesday didn’t know what to do with that information. Her intensity was part of who she was, and she required no validation over whether it were a desirable trait — she was completely comfortable with herself. But there was something in the matter-of-fact way he said it that she quite enjoyed, she had to admit. Maybe Pugsley had good taste in friends after all.

The elevator had spat them out into quite a spectacle of a room. More fake cobwebs hung heavy and low from the sealing. The flickering lights here were tinted green, giving everything a most pleasant sickly pallor. The walls were splattered in grungy paint, splattered with yellows and oranges. The room held a vanity, caked in dust and grime, and a chaise lounge.

The chaise was a veritable cornucopia of child dolls.

But the centre of the room, that held the real attraction. A woman stood in a wedding dress with a tremendous, filthy veil that covered her face and reached the ground. Around her stood candelabras, with candles half-burnt and absolutely dripping with wax. But as Wednesday, with the rest of the group, began to walk forward, she realised that the flames atop the candles were electric, the candles plastic and merely moulded to look half-burnt. She wrinkled her nose.

However, she noticed that the dolls on the chaise were all dressed in the same wedding dress and veil as the woman in the centre. It was that kind of attention to detail that Wednesday loved in a design aesthetic, even if it were a little over the top for her usual tastes.

The bride had a bouquet of drying flowers drawn close to her chest.

“Oh my god, that’s the exact veil I wanted, Brian,” the cat-girl said to her footballer boyfriend.

“Babe, Sarah, like, that’s seriously too scary,” Brian said. He retreated behind Wednesday and Nick, his face paling beneath the war paint. “I don’t really like this.”

The werewolves were less easily shaken, though Wednesday found their bravado to be quite transparent.

“Looks like my ex,” Jonas said to the bride, who didn’t stir. “Do you remember, Jordan? How wedding crazy she was?”

“Oh shit yeah,” Will replied. “She was so annoying.”

“Hey,” Jonas said.

Wednesday wished they would shut up. At almost the same moment, as if the spirits that haunted the place read her mind, the lights flickered, and the candles went out, plunging them into darkness.

“Fuck,” she heard Jonas mutter in the dark. “I can’t see shit.”

But then a light — some kind of spotlight, coming up from the floor — drenched the bride in a harsh green light.

“Are you my husband?” she said, her voice creaky and reedy, as if she hadn’t used it for a many a decade.

“Depends,” Jonas said. “Do you put out?”

Wednesday balled her fists up. Tried to take a deep breath. It was quite remarkable, really, that the back of Jonas’s head was just as punchable as the front.

A cry sounded from the bride, unnatural and tinny, almost like — and Wednesday realised that was absolutely the case as soon as she thought it — it was supplemented by a speaker, presumably hidden within the folds of her elaborate dress.

The dolls began to twitch on the chaise lounge, moving and heaving in a pile while the lights flickered on and off. The bride was raised off the floor, and began to glide menacingly about the room, finally moving to chase them. Wednesday allowed herself to be shepherding them towards the door on the left with a roll of her eyes.

As they entered into the hallway beyond, the bride close at their heels but seemingly relegated to “haunt” only the one room, Nick grimaced at her.

“I thought it’d be scarier than that,” he said. “Hopefully the next room is better?”

Wednesday said nothing. She had realized some time back what she was dealing with, and was not much interested in Madam Zokov’s House of Lies.

The next room involved a mad scientist doing experiments on a woman strapped to a table, the walls festooned with guts and offal. It was all maddeningly over the top. No mad scientist worth his salt would work in such filthy conditions. No, all the ones that Wednesday knew were fastidious to a fault.

When they left, they were in a very long hallway. Nick turned to her.

“Are you okay?” he said. “You don’t seem to be having fun.”

“I suppose I just don’t get it,” she said.

“What part?”

“Why would anyone make this all up?” Wednesday said. “This has all the trappings of a freak show. Ghosts may no longer have physical vessels, and monsters may not look exactly like us, but that doesn’t mean they should be made fun of and used for cheap thrills for idiots.” She motioned towards Jonas as she said that. “Especially when there are plenty of living human beings who are plenty deserving of being jeered at.”

Nick seemed to seriously consider this for a moment. He considered it for longer than she’d come to expect people in L.A to think about something before they answered. She was usually surrounded with people who suffered from chronic verbal diarrhoea, who responded often before Wednesday even had a chance to finish speaking.

The hallway they were walking down was painted in such a way that it was disorienting and nauseating. At least Wednesday could admire the craftsmanship here, away from the actors.

“I forgot, about all the ghosts and monsters stuff, all the stuff Pugs showed me,” he said. “I should have thought that this might be insensitive. Sorry.”

“If I had only known it were a fake amusement park, I might have suggested somewhere else.”

They walked in silence, only the guffaws of Jonas echoing down the hallway. Wednesday was about to follow the werewolf into the next room, when Nick touched her gently on the arm.

“Hey, what do you say we just get out of here, then?” he said. “She said we could just raise our hand, right?”

“Would you allow me to pay you back? I have only gold doubloons on me at the moment, but I’m sure I can get that changed for you.”

He waved her off and lifted his other arm high in the air. Thankfully, the werewolf bros were too distracted punching each other in the arm to notice, or Wednesday was sure it would draw some tiresome comment.

“It’s fine, it was my idea, after all,” Nick said.

It wasn’t long before a man dressed, refreshingly, in plain clothes came to collect them, and they were led through a door that was artfully disguised under blood splatters (Wednesday didn’t want to check whether they were real or not, lest she be disappointed). The night was still warm when they got out onto the street, but there was a chilly breeze.

“Can I make that up to you?” Nick said. “I have an idea — for something you might actually like.”

Wednesday was skeptical. But, something in his expression, earnest and pleading, reminded her of a sacrificial lamb, and she could never resist that look.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Let me just—“ He pulled out his phone, checking something in maps. “Okay, it’s not far.”

Wednesday followed him back to the little beat up vehicle that smelled vaguely of fast food and climbed in. Before they could leave though, he declared he’d be back in a second, and she watched him run across the road to the little convenience store on the corner. A minute later, he was scuttling back with a bottle of wine in his hands.

“Alright, ready now,” he said. He handed the bottle to her and started the car off.

“Where are we going?” Wednesday asked again.

“It’s a surprise,” he said, smirking.

The streets were dancing with people in costumes. The street lights protracted into a million disparate shadows.

“I don’t like surprises,” Wednesday said carefully.

He looked at her for a moment, before looking back at the road.

“It’s not far, just hang on,” he insisted. “One minute…”

He swung the car down a side road, and then another, and then the were driving alongside a —

“Ah, you were right,” Wednesday said.

“Hm?”

“I do like it.”

She could only see slivers of headstones and huge, overly ornate mausoleums through the railings of the cemetery, but her breath came more easily now she was back in the presence of death.

He pulled into the tiny parking lot.

“Let’s have a picnic,” he said, looking quite self-satisfied.

“Did you bring food?” Wednesday said.

“…Let’s drink, anyway,” he said.

They got out. She hadn’t been to this particular graveyard — she always remembered if she’d been to one before, learnt the ones she liked as if the headstones were braille to be memorised. Each cemetery had its own unique identity and personality, if a person just gave enough time to understand it. Few people, she knew, bothered to take that time.

From the parking lot, there were three paths. Nick led them down the one that was lined with lights and trees.

“Have you been here before?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “But I drove past it earlier.”

Not the same thing at all. Still, it was lovely here. The trees dampened the sound that they might have otherwise heard from the road, and everything smelled fresh and green. A rare scent indeed for Los Angeles.

They had come abreast of a lake, and Nick broke off from the path. They wandered through the headstones before finding a suitable place to sit, where they could lean against headstones without directly sitting on graves. In Wednesday’s experience, the dead really had no problem with what you did with their graves — they usual didn’t notice, really — but it was the undead’s graves you had to be careful of. Though, mostly you could identity those by the freshly turned dirt, but it was never a risk she found worth taking. Just woken undead tended to be very grouchy and beyond reasoning.

She sat, and looked at the bottle in her hands.

“Did you bring a corkscrew?” she asked.

“Oh shit, you’re kidding,” he said, taking it off of her. “I thought it was a twist cap. Mmm, hang on.”

He rooted in his backpack, and produced a switchblade. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“What, you don’t keep knife handy on you?” he said, grinning. “What do you do when you need to sacrifice some virgins in a pinch?”

Wednesday sighed wistfully.

“My virgin sacrificing days are long behind me.”

Nick smiled, and then frowned, then smiled again before he shook his head.

“You two are more alike than I thought,” he said. “You and Pugs I mean. I never knew when he was joking either.”

“It’s probably for the best not to ask,” Wednesday said. “You want to keep your plausible deniability, don’t you?”

“…I still don’t know if you’re joking,” he said. Finally, he managed to get the cork out. He drank straight from the bottle. “It’s nice here, huh?”

“It is, actually,” she said, looking around them. The headstones in this part of the cemetery were delightfully crooked, and a light breeze rolled off the lake besides them. The streetlights were just far enough away that everything was cast into a most wonderful shadow, including Nick and she. She shivered, and took the proffered wine bottle from him.

“Pugs always said cemeteries reminded him of home,” Nick said. He leant against the back of a headstone and looked up into the night sky.

She smiled.

Pugsley had always found a lot more in common with people outside their family than Wednesday herself had, and with their own lives to lead, they rarely caught up as often as she would have liked. It was nice to know he would hang around graveyards just to think of home.

“They remind me of home too,” she said.

“So that’s one time he wasn’t kidding, huh? You guys really had a graveyard behind your house?”

Wednesday nodded. Thinking of that, while smelling the rich topsoil of the cemetery they were sitting in, feeling the coolness of the stone on the back of her neck, she felt a tug in her chest.

“No, that was no joke,” Wednesday said. “It was a lovely graveyard. Still is. I haven’t been home in a while.”

“Do you miss it, ever?”

She nodded. She closed her eyes. The smell of the sweet moss and rot was enough to allow her to imagine she was back there, just for a second. Her eyes flickered open again.

“Often, yes. I like Los Angeles, but it is very…different. The people in particular. But one must spread their wings, mustn’t they?” she said. “And I rather like the life I’ve built here.”

She took another drink, and passed the bottle back to him.

“What about you? Do you miss your home?”

“No,” he said, laughing and screwing up his face.

“Is there something particularly wrong with where you’re from?” Wednesday asked.

He shrugged, and drank. Wednesday got the impression that he was drinking to delay answering.

“I just never felt like I fit in,” he said at last. “Everyone there expected me to be something. All these alpha men, trying to push each other around and prove their masculinity, you know?”

“Oh, I’ve met a fair few men who call themselves alpha here, yes,” Wednesday said. She closed her eyes to savour the memories of the lessons she taught many of those same men when they’d stepped over the line.

“Yeah, so. That, and everyone was so backwards about some stuff. I just didn’t have time for a lot of people there.’

“I can understand that,” Wednesday said.

“So what do you normally do on Halloween then?” Nick asked.

“Since coming here, nothing,” she said. “I usually stay at home, do a few rituals. It’s a quiet affair.”

“Right,” he said. He took a swig. “What about at home then? With your family? Pugs always said you guys did stuff.”

“We celebrate it as All Hallows Eve at home. Usually hold a nice seance, talk to my Aunt Muriel and some other relatives. Occasionally we’d go out and raise the dead. Sometimes mother would surprise us with a sacrificial goat or Uncle Fester would bake his famous bat soufflé. No matter what, though, it was always nice to spend time together as a family.”

Nick blinked at her.

“I’m not going to touch any of that,” he said after a moment. “But, um, I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves.”

“Does your family do anything for All Hallows Eve?”

“Eh, we’re more of a Christmas crowd, really,” Nick said shrugging. “Just presents and the traditional family fight, you know?”

“Do you not enjoy spending time together?”

“No, we do, we just…don’t always see eye to eye. Like I said, they have some views I just don’t agree with. Don’t your family fight?”

Wednesday tried to think.

“Rarely. When we were kids, Pugsley and I fought more. Mostly when he would want to be the one in the Electric Chair,” she said.

“Oh,” Nick said, frowning. “Huh, I thought his electric shock stuff was a weird sex thing.”

“Oh, no! A good electrocution really gets the blood going. You really must try it some time. It’s invigorating.”

Nick shrugged. “Maybe.” He didn’t sound too convinced. His loss.

They sat in silence for a while, and Wednesday looked up at the sky. It was dappled with stars, and the moon was fat.

“We should probably head off,” Nick said, getting up. “It’s getting late, and I have my first day at work tomorrow. But this was nice. It’s nice to know there’s a friendly face here now.”

Wednesday got up and brushed the grave dirt off of the back of her dress.

“It was nice, you’re right, despite Madam Zokov’s,” she said.

Nick grimaced. “Sorry about that, again.”

She began to pick her way through the headstones, leading them back to the path.

“If you’d be willing, I’d love to hang out again,” he said behind her. “Next time, I’ll pick somewhere a little less…well, you know.”

“I would be willing, yes,” Wednesday said. They moved past the last headstone, and were now under the soft lights of the path, moths flitting to and fro above them. “A simple dinner will suffice, though.”

He let out a breath.

“Okay, _phew_ , I was worried I’d managed to muck up my first go at making a new friend since college,” Nick said.

He was self-depricating in a way that Wednesday wasn’t sure how she felt about, but, luckily, she didn’t consider other people’s personalities to be any of her business, as long as they were nice. So she brushed the thought aside immediately.

“Perhaps it would be a good idea if I picked the next location, anyway,” Wednesday said as they reached the car. “Do you have any allergies?”

He shook his head. “I’ll eat just about anything.”

“Well, then I know a great Italian place,” she said. “Perhaps next weekend?”

“That would be great,” he said. He chuckled. “You know, I didn’t know what to expect.”

“From?”

They’d reached the car, and Wednesday ducked in, careful not to spill the now open bottle of wine that Nick handed her.

“From you,” he admitted. “Pugs had told me so many stories, and like I said, I never knew which ones were true. You know what Pugs is like.”

“He does enjoy a good tall tale, yes,” Wednesday said fondly.

“Exactly. And your family are so, um, unique. So what would his sister really be like? And he warned me that you don’t suffer fools gladly.”

“That would be true,” Wednesday said.

“And I can be pretty foolish. So…yeah. But you’re really nice.”

“Thanks, I think.” While it had all the trappings of a compliment, she wasn’t confident that it was one.

“I mean it. You’re very cool,” he said. His cheeks were sort of pink, but it was hard to tell whether that was just the dim light. “Anyway, enough of my stupid rambling. Shall I take you home?”

“Please,” she said.

He took off. She watched the party-goers still raring on the streets on the way.

“Feel free to put on some music,” he said, gesturing to his phone.

“I know a few dirges perfect for All Hallows Eve,” she said. He chuckled, but quietened down once the first dirge began to play out of his car’s speakers.

It didn’t take long to get back to her place — most people seemed to be out already, and not going home anytime soon.

She waved him off from the front door, and watched him pull away into the darkness of the street.

A new friend. All things considered, not a bad Halloween night.


End file.
